The Field of 68 Predicted

SOUTH (MEMPHIS)(Orlando)
Florida vs Mt St Mary's/Texas Southern
Memphis vs Kansas State

(Spokane)
San Diego State vs Stephen F Austin
North Carolina vs Tulsa

(Buffalo)
Villanova vs NC Central
UConn vs Iowa

(Milwaukee)
Michigan vs UL-Lafayette
Baylor vs Gonzaga

WEST (Anaheim)
(San Diego)
Arizona vs Coastal Carolina/Cal Poly
George Washington vs Oklahoma State

(San Antonio)
Creighton vs New Mexico State
Kentucky vs BYU/NC State

(Spokane)
Iowa State vs Eastern Kentucky
Ohio State vs Xavier

(Orlando)
Louisville vs Weber State
Oregon vs Tennesseee

MIDWEST (Indianapolis)
(Saint Louis)
Wichita State vs Albany
Texas vs Pitt

(San Diego)
UCLA vs Manhattan
VCU vs North Dakota State

(Milwaukee)
Wisconsin vs Mercer
Saint Louis vs Nebraska

(Raleigh)
Duke vs American
Oklahoma vs Colorado

EAST (New York)
(Raleigh)
Virginia vs Wofford
St Joseph's vs Stanford

(San Antonio)
Michigan State vs Western Michigan
Cincinnati vs Harvard

(Buffalo)
Syracuse vs Delaware
New Mexico vs Arizona State/SMU

(Saint Louis)
Kansas vs Milwaukee
UMass vs Providence

Nine (or Thirteen Places) to see a game

THE PALESTRA

I've been here!  If your arena is known as "the cathedral of college basketball", there's a good chance it makes the list of best college hoops venues. It's hard to imagine how, uh, big the Big 5 is in Philly when you don't live there. Or at least I'm speculating that it is. Philly has a Baltimore-level passion for basketball, but unlike Baltimore it has a half dozen colleges within its confines that have a much richer history (PAT'S CATS of Towson U notwithstanding), and the Palestra was home to many of the games between those teams. It's tiny (8,722) and old (opened New Year's 1927), but that's certainly part of the charm.  Plus there have been plenty of Penn-Princeton showdowns here for Ivy League crowns, including one where Princeton came back from down 33-9 (!) at the half to take an improabable 50-49 win back to New Jersey.


CAMERON INDOOR STADIUM

Sure, it's packed with the most nerds this side of ComicCon, but be that as it may, the fans are about as passionate as you'll find. Even with a capacity of just 9,314, the miniature size of the "stadium" means that it's almost always rocking. As a Maryland fan, would there be a better feeling than walking out of Cameron with a win over a highly ranked Duke team? Not likely. There's also the mystique of just being there because tickets are tough to come by unless you're give tens of thousands to the Iron Dukes or have tons of dough for scalping.  The major downside here is that Duke is really, really good most years, especially at home, so you're likely to walk out of here having seen a Duke win, which is really less than optimal for your enjoyment.

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

The World's Most Famous Arena may sound like typical New Yawwwk hubris, but it's probably a true statement. It's much like the Rose Bowl in that if you were born after the 1940's it loses a bit of its resonance, but still has its place in history and current day. MSG is probably known more for the Knicks these days, and gone are the days of doubleheaders and huge Christmas tournaments, but the Garden still has the 2K Sports Clasic, the Jimmy V, the Champions Classic on a rotating basis, tons of other feature games...and the NIT! Or not. But the Preseason NIT is fun, most years.  The knock here is that the Barclay's Center has become as much, if not more, of a destination for college basketball teams and fans throughout the season, particularly for Terps fans.  There's no doubt it's a nicer facility, but it has a long way to go to develop the history that the Garden has.

THE PIT

What a great name. It's called that not just to evoke the idea of stepping into the bowels of hell when you come to play the Lobos, but because it's 37 feet below street level.  Of course netting that against its 5,312 feet above sea level means it's still pretty high up in there for those of us who don't live at altitude.  New Mexico has had a renaissance lately that begin under former-coach Steve Alford, but even if you don't care to see some usually-very-good Mountain West action, you're likely going to be able to catch some NCAA Tournament action here as The Pit frequently hosts early- and regional-round games of the Dance.

RUPP ARENA

The Comcast Center is enormous, and it holds about 18,000 fans when packed. Kentucky, for a big game, can get over 24,000 fans - fully 1/3 more than Comcast at capacity. This isn't necessarily the loudest crowd, at least per capita, but it beats out the Carrier Dome in the "Huge-Ass Arena" category just by virtue of its not doubling as the school's football stadium as well.  Plus, if you go, it will always be fun to laugh at how Kentucky was on the wrong side of history in that 1966 NCAA Final in Cole Field House.  I can say with certainty that if the Terps ever have another home and home with Kentucky like they did in the 90's back when Gary actually scheduled good teams, I will be there. 

LAHAINA CIVIC CENTER

Nothing says college basketball like Feast Week, and nothing says Feast Week more than the Maui Invitational. The LCC is odd because most nights it's a tiny gym (not arena) where hosts Chaminade plays a cavalcade of teams you've never heard of in a Division that no one sees on TV, but for three days each year on Thanksgiving week, it hosts 7 of the best teams that the mainland has to offer, plus commentator extraordinaires Sean McDonough and Jay Bilas.  Amazing stuff.  There's nowhere else you could go where you have a chance to see a tournament featuring two top-10 teams battling and also some of the biggest upsets in college sports when Chaminade wins a game, which has happened seven times in the tournament's history. 

THE KENNEL

I have to admit, I've always had a soft spot for Gonzaga. I think a lot of folks are tired of them and think they're frequently overrated (possibly true), but it's amazing to me that a program at a tiny Jesuit school in the northwest with no history has managed to be one of the best programs in the country since the late 90's with a rotating cast of highly recruited players from the US and abroad, many of whom wind up playing in then NBA. McCarthey Athletic Center seats only 6,000, but watch a late night ESPN game between Gonzaga and Saint Mary's or BYU and see how loud that crowd can get.

THE INDIANA TOUR

So I'm cheating here, but if you're in Indiana, you've already gone much more horribly wrong than this list. We start out at Butler, where they played for the National Title two years running and now actually have name brand basketball programs coming in every year. Hinkle Field House is a pretty good place to see a game, and oh yeah, it's where Hoosiers took place. You can leave Indianapolis for Bloomington where you'll go to Assembly Hall, where you can see FIVE national championship banner - just watch out for falling objects. After that you make a stop in West Lafayette to watch Purdue play in Mackey Arena on a floor where the benches are below the level of the playing surface.  Then round out the Big Four in South Bend at the Joyce Center where Notre Dame has one of the best home court records in the nation.

COLE FIELD HOUSE

The one, the only.  With Maryland Madness being held here this year, it's going to happen.  When 14,500 pile into that sweatbox in the middle of campus it will be glorious.  Let's just hope that when the day comes, and the team goes on a big run to force the other coach to call a time out, the band strikes up those notes of Rock n' Roll Part II.  How much does a new roof for a 60-year-old field house cost, anyway?